


Your Heart Inside Me

by fridaysblues (taemin)



Category: EXO (Band), SHINee
Genre: Alternate Canon, Empathy, Future Fic, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 00:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5143100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taemin/pseuds/fridaysblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Jongin, again. It's always Jongin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Heart Inside Me

✧✧✧

He wakes up in Tokyo.

There's a faint, familiar buzzing in his skull, the tiniest of vibrations humming behind his eyelids, sweet and warm—it's Jongin, again. It's always Jongin.

Except Jongin's not in his head, he's right here, cozy and soft, snoring into the pillow. Arrived on a midnight flight and collapsed into bed long past the time where Taemin was fully aware of anything. He dimly remembers squinting at the alarm clock, tossing an arm over Jongin's hip, burying his face into Jongin's chest, and then nothing else.

It's morning now. Jongin's still sprawled across the bedsheets, mouth wide open, jeans unbuttoned and still on. Fast asleep and dreaming. Taemin catches threads of it here and there as he wakes up fully, Jongin's dream skittering across the back of his mind in a way that used to be truly disconcerting, but after all these years living like this, he's used to it now. It's like an unbidden memory, except he's seeing it scroll past for the first time.

"Where are you supposed to be right now?" he murmurs. Jongin rolls over in a grumpy heap, muttering something about fifteen more minutes and a day off. He hasn't had a day off in three months, and Taemin suspects this may have been a coup on Jongin's part instead of a reprieve from his manager. Jongin's a busy guy these days, even more so since EXO announced their reunion tour on the heels of Minseok's discharge from the Army. Kyungsoo's even back for this one, which, given the current (busy) state of his acting career and his own imminent stint in the military, hadn't been a sure thing until just last week, which was really cutting it close, considering they're starting shows at the Dome at the beginning of next month. 

Taemin checks Jongin's phone. Seventeen missed calls and twice as many text messages. He reads the most recent ones, all from Jongin's manager— _STOPPED BY YOUR PLACE. YOU'RE NOT IN SEOUL? DO I NEED TO CALL THE POLICE??? WHERE DID YOU GO. CALL ME BACK._

He fires off a reply ( _He's in Tokyo. Arrived safely. — T_ ) and turns the phone on silent to avoid any further disruptions. Jongin's managers should be used to this by now. It's not hard to figure out. When Jongin goes missing, he's never too far from Taemin when he resurfaces. It's stupid, because this thing they share between them means they don't have to be on the same continent, let alone the same room, but the physical distance seems to wear on Jongin in ways it never has for Taemin. Sometimes he just needs to come home—back to Taemin, wherever that may be at the moment.

Taemin helps him undress the rest of the way. Socks first, peeled off one by one to expose wriggling toes. His jeans next, tugging at them when they get stuck around Jongin's knees until Jongin protests with a loud, petulant whine and kicks them the rest of the way off himself. The shirt comes easier—release the button at the throat, then repeat the motion six times. It peels away, exposing a flimsy cotton undershirt, radiating heat from Jongin's sleep-warm skin. 

Half-naked and growing cold now, Jongin shifts his body closer to Taemin, trying to cling to sleep. The bond is more intense like this, skin-to-skin, and a sudden overwhelming sense of exhaustion—Jongin's exhaustion, from days upon weeks of rehearsals and extra practice sessions—washes over him. Jongin relaxes the minute Taemin pulls the blankets back around their shoulders. He feels some of Jongin's lingering anxiety transfer, crackling like electricity up his fingertips, accelerating his pulse. The wrinkles in Jongin's forehead smooth away. His cheek dimples, the closest to a smile he can manage when he's just below the surface, and then he's out again.

✧✧✧

He wakes up in Seoul.

It's after midnight. Jongin is not here this time even though he really should be an arm's length away in bed at this hour, but Taemin still feels him anyway. He stumbles to the bathroom hunched over, his waist aching. He knows: Jongin's pushing himself too hard again. He's determined to force his body to adhere to the same practice schedule he'd kept at sixteen, even though he's a decade and numerous injuries past that point.

Taemin's chest, his legs, his joints—they all burn. So Jongin's been at it for a while. Sometimes he wishes he could articulate entire sentences through the link so he could tell Jongin to take it easy, come back to him and get some rest, try again in the morning with fresh muscles. It feels particularly useless to him in times like these, when all he can do is share the burden of Jongin's frustration and lend him his sympathy in return.

He splashes water on his face and breathes deeply, trying to absorb the pain Jongin's inflicting on himself. It mostly works.

Halfway around the world or a block away and still, Taemin knows the instant that Jongin's having a crisis. It used to confuse him when these feelings started banging around in his head—shit he thought he'd put to bed years ago; this nameless, shapeless anxiety that came looming out of the darkness and haunted him, until he realized it was Jongin's anxiety, Jongin's apprehension. When they were young and first starting out, Taemin's head start afforded him a lot of valuable experience that he passed on to Jongin, little by little, until he stopped coming to Taemin for advice and pep talks and looked for commiseration and comfort, instead.

One hand on his lower back to ease away the pain, Taemin kicks around the discarded clothes on his floor until he finds what he's looking for: the crushed pack of cigarettes in the back pocket of the jeans he'd been wearing the day before. Jongin always complains when he smokes indoors and can tell when he's done it even days later, even sitting at the open window blowing the smoke outside, so he opts for the balcony instead. It's chilly outside, but with the brisk air comes clarity.

Jongin answers after the fourth ring, just in time to divert the call from going to voicemail. "Hey," he says, sounding out of breath. "I didn't wake you when I left, did I?"

"Hey, idiot," Taemin says, balancing the phone between his shoulder and his ear so he can light the cigarette he's got dangling between his lips. "When was the last time you took a break?

"I've almost got it."

Taemin takes a long drag and watches the embers twinkle, just slightly out of focus past the end of his nose. "Come home. Go back to it after you've slept."

Jongin hesitates. "But I—"

"What is it?"

"It's not good enough yet," he says quietly, and this is something Taemin can understand without having to feel it for himself. He knows. They are so alike in this particular way, both perfectionists to a fault. There is always, always room for improvement, and Taemin would never ask Jongin to compromise his work ethic—but in Taemin's experience, the best results are never forced. It's something he's trying to get Jongin to understand.

"It will be."

"When?"

"Not tonight. I'm making cocoa. You'd better hurry," Taemin says, and ends the call without saying goodbye. He feels the fond twinge that starts across town in Jongin's chest and rubs the spot right over his heart, like he's saying _me too_.

✧✧✧

He can't sleep on the plane.

They're sneaking away again, to New York this time, or Los Angeles—it really doesn't matter because it's all the same, and Taemin doesn't care where they're going as long as they just _get there_ , because they're sitting together in first class, knees knocking together when the plane hits some unexpected turbulence. Jongin keeps himself busy thumbing through a worn paperback book he'd bought for pocket change at some late-night street market. Taemin turns to ask him a question and finds him fast asleep against the window, mouth open wide.

When they check into their hotel room, he drops his bag and makes a beeline for the jacuzzi tub, fills it to brimming with hot water that smells like an expensive spa, roses and perfume. Jongin stands in the doorway, shoes in hand, watching Taemin roll his sleeves up to his elbows to test the temperature.

"This is the honeymoon suite," he notes, laughing at the _HIS & HERS_ robes hanging on the back of the door, waiting for them. "Why did you ask for this room?"

"It had the biggest bed," Taemin says, pushing Jongin into an ungainly sprawl right in the middle of it, sending rose petals flying everywhere. The sheets wrinkle underneath their bodies as Taemin hovers overhead, a rigid arm's length away, and drops a few sloppy kisses onto Jongin's mouth. Drunk on jet lag and half a bottle of complimentary champagne from room service, his lips soften, their kisses ugly and imprecise—the kind of kisses that aren't hot unless you're in the middle of them. Jongin's weary body gives itself to Taemin without their usual push-and-pull. The link is wide open, his body singing for Taemin to keep touching him here, kissing him there—Jongin wants all of it, delirious, insistent.

Taemin coaxes him into the tub eventually. The water's too hot and it sloshes everywhere, all over the pristine marble tile. Jongin laughs and launches a bar of soap at Taemin through his slippery palms, reminding him of middle school science classes, of water displacement, of the thousands of times they've done this before, always with the same result—the puddles of water on the floor, the towel Taemin'd put down as a makeshift bathmat sopping wet. _You never learn._

Jongin is beautiful like this, relaxed and content. He leans back against the edge of the tub, face damp with rising steam. Even when he's laughing, chattering on, pulling Taemin into his lap, biting at his lips, wrestling for the upper hand—Jongin is so focused on this, on being here, on outward expressions of affection, that the link goes silent. It used to freak Taemin out when it happened, but it doesn't trouble him anymore. He can feel enough for them both in those moments. He'd know immediately if it was anything else, probably even before Jongin himself would realize anything was wrong.

"Come here," Taemin says, pulling at Jongin's wrist. Jongin resists, playfully at first, and then finally relents; he pushes back, the water lapping in the space between their bodies, a slow pulsing tide—ripples spreading out, one cresting into the next, into the next, into their skin.

The warmth lingers in Taemin long after the bath water goes cold.

✧✧✧


End file.
